Sources: Project SGLang spins out as RadixArk with $400M valuation as inference market explodes

Berkeley: RadixArk is a new company from SGLang, which helps AI models work faster and cheaper. It was valued at about $400 million after a funding round led by Accel. This startup just began in August 2023, but has already gained a lot of attention.

The team behind SGLang, used by companies like xAI, is now part of RadixArk. SGLang started as a project in a UC Berkeley lab. Ying Sheng, who worked at xAI, is now the CEO of RadixArk. She used to be a research scientist at Databricks.

Both SGLang and RadixArk help make AI models run better and save money. This is important because running AI services can be costly. RadixArk focuses on improving inference, which is how models give answers based on data.

Other companies, like vLLM, have also become startups from open source projects. vLLM is looking to raise about $160 million and is valued around $1 billion. Many tech companies are using vLLM for their AI needs too, showing a strong interest in these tools.

RadixArk continues to work on SGLang, which will remain free, but they have begun charging for hosting services. The need for tools that make AI work more efficiently is growing, and investments in this area are being seen more often, indicating its importance.